Pressure Point

Delivering “a gripping insider’s view of the secret world of nuclear security (W.E.B. Griffin), Dick Couch’s explosive novel poses the chilling and timely question: How safe are America’s waterways from terrorist threat?” Riding quietly at her moorings at the highly-secure Trident Submarine Base on Puget Sound, the U.S. Navy’s deadly weapon—the Trident submarine—waits for her return to the sea. But an Arab terrorist known as the Shadow has targeted the USS Michigan, along with the nearly three hundred nuclear warheads nestled in its missile silos. He intends to take the deadliest weapon of the Cold War and turn it into the deadliest dirty bomb conceivable. The Shadow begins his quest by hijacking the Spokane, flagship of the America’s largest ferry fleet.

The nation, caught by surprise, sends a select team of Navy SEALs to stop the Shadow. They are aided by a savvy FBI agent and the ferry’s courageous captain, Ross Peck. Unless the U.S. wields its political might to support his terrorist brothers in the Middle East, the Shadow will unleash a radiological holocaust, and a nightmare beyond imagining. . . . I hatched the plot for Pressure Point while commuting into Seattle on a Washington State ferry. Thinking like a terrorist, I imagined that it shouldn’t be too hard to take over a big passenger ferry. Then what? Answering that question, and writing this book, earned me a visit from senior officials of the Department of Energy.